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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How do I pass a wild card as an argument Post 302112492 by eja on Wednesday 28th of March 2007 10:31:03 AM
Old 03-28-2007
How do I pass a wild card as a variable

Hi,

I would like to pass a wild card as part of an argument. But when I do it the script views the wild card as text.
Example:
sFile=MG1A*
sort $sFile > $sFile.sorted

What I get is MG1A*.sorted

The problem is I am passed a series of files where the first few characters like "MG1A" are constant. The additional part of the file name is a date time stamp. I will never know the exact date time stamp. I need to do a search for MG1A* which will find me one file. How can I write my script so the variable $sFile will know that the "*" in MG1A* is a wild card not text?

I know I can write code to run "ls" on a directory and get all file names then write a loop or do statement to do my sort based upon that list regardless of the file name. But I have more files in the dir than I want to grab. I also know I can run the "ls" command output the file names in the dir to a file and grep for the part fo the file names I am looking for. I also think this can be done if I pput the whole comamnd iBut current design restricts me form going that path. It would require a whole re-write and I am trying to avoid that.

Thank you.

Last edited by eja; 03-28-2007 at 11:37 AM..
 

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TREE(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   TREE(1)

NAME
tree - list contents of directories in a tree-like format. SYNOPSIS
tree [ -adfgilnpqstuxACDFN ] [ -P pattern ] [ -I pattern ] [ directory ... ] DESCRIPTION
Tree is a recursive directory listing program that produces a depth indented listing of files. Color is supported ala dircolors if the LS_COLORS environment variable is set, output is to a tty, and the -C flag is used. With no arguments, tree lists the files in the current directory. When directory arguments are given, tree lists all the files and/or directories found in the given directories each in turn. Upon completion of listing all files/directories found, tree returns the total number of files and/or directories listed. By default, when a symbolic link is encountered, the path that the symbolic link refers to is printed after the name of the link in the format: name -> real-path If the `-l' option is given and the symbolic link refers to an actual directory, then tree will follow the path of the symbolic link as if it were a real directory. OPTIONS
Tree understands the following command line switches: -a All files are printed. By default tree does not print hidden files (those beginning with a dot `.'). In no event does tree print the file system constructs `.' (current directory) and `..' (previous directory). -d List directories only. -f Prints the full path prefix for each file. -i Makes tree not print the indentation lines, useful when used in conjunction with the -f option. -l Follows symbolic links if they point to directories, as if they were directories. -x Stay on the current file-system only. Ala find -xdev. -P pattern List only those files that match the wild-card pattern. Note: you must use the -a option to also consider those files beginning with a dot `.' for matching. Valid wildcard operators are `*' (any zero or more characters), `?' (any single character), `[...]' (any single character listed between brackets (optional - (dash) for character range may be used: ex: [A-Z]), and `[^...]' (any sin- gle character not listed in brackets). -I pattern Do not list those files that match the wild-card pattern. -p Print the protections for each file (as per ls -l). -s Print the size of each file along with the name. -u Print the username, or UID # if no username is available, of the file. -g Print the group name, or GID # if no group name is available, of the file. -D Print the date of the last modification time for the file listed. -F Append a `/' for directories, a `=' for socket files, a `*' for executable files and a `|' for FIFO's, as per ls -F -q Print non-printable characters in filenames as question marks instead of the default caret notation. -N Print non-printable characters as is instead of the default caret notation. -t Sort the output by last modification time instead of alphabetically. -n Turn colorization off always, over-ridden by the -C option. -C Turn colorization on always, unless the LS_COLORS environment variable is not set. Useful to colorize output to a pipe. -A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation lines. FILES
/etc/DIR_COLORS System color database. ~/.dircolors Users color database. ENVIRONMENT
LS_COLORS Color information created by dircolors AUTHOR
Steve Baker (ice@mama.indstate.edu) BUGS
None known. Not heavily tested. Needs a few more options, ala ls. SEE ALSO
dircolors(1L), ls(1L) UNIX Programmer's Manual TREE(1)
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